1. Technical Field
Disclosed embodiments relate generally, by way of example and not limitation, to systems and methods that permit a financial-institution customer holding a debit card (i.e., cardholder) to direct rounded amounts of debit-card withdrawals for purchases or automatic teller machine (ATM) transactions to various accounts, including, but not limited to, the cardholder's savings accounts or investment accounts.
2. History of Related Art
In recent years, usage of debit cards has increased greatly. Debit cards are often used by financial-institution customers at both ATMs for cash withdrawals and to purchase goods or services, both online (i.e., via the Internet) and at traditional brick-and-mortar business establishments. Most debit cards allow cardholders to make purchases by using their debit card in similar fashion to a credit card by requiring the cardholder's signature at the time of purchase or by entering a personal identification number (PIN) in similar fashion to the manner in which the debit card may be used at an ATM.
In traditional cash-based transactions, consumers often purchase goods or services for amounts that do not total a whole-dollar amount (e.g., $1.14, $5.29, $10.42, or $37.96). In such cases, the consumer typically reaches the end of the day with a pocketful of change that is emptied into a jar or the like. In order to try to avoid such situations, consumers employ various strategies. For example, when purchasing gasoline, in order to reach a whole-dollar purchase amount, consumers often purchase more gasoline than the amount bought when a gas pump they are using initially shuts off. For example, if the gas pump stops at $28.91 worth of gasoline, a typical consumer pumps a bit more gasoline in order to reach the whole-dollar amount of $29.00. This practice avoids the need for the consumer to carry additional change for the remainder of the day and also reduces the amount of change that collects at their home or workplace, which change inevitably needs to be disposed of in some way.
Some disciplined consumers periodically collect the change that has accumulated from the result of non-whole-dollar cash transactions and direct this change towards an investment of some sort. However, such a practice takes a considerable amount of discipline and is also time-consuming. Moreover, as debit cards have become more widely used, the number of cash transactions a typical consumer is involved in, and consequently, the total amount of resulting change, have significantly decreased, making such a plan less advantageous to the consumer.